This is going in c/electoralism

  • Des [she/her, they/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    oh damn apparently it's an aesthetic i must have invented in my head lol. i've heard of "nasa-punk" but that's just relating to the game starfield. but in my mind it's basically kit bashing apollo-era asethetics and design and extrapolating how that same design philosophy could apply to the future. so basically durable, simple transitor computers, big bell rocket engines, lots of gray, tons of early digital switches, buttons, and CRT screens and exposed or easily exposed hardware for maintenance.
    supposedly the Nostromo was inspired by a WW2 submarine but with the moon landings fresh in everyone's heads there was a definite eye for 70s realism and the design reflected that a bit.

    also it's technical stats state that it was originally an exploration vessel using a more advanced version of the Saturn-5s cryogenic engines until upgraded with either fission or fusion thermal engines with H2O for propellant.

    neat technical trivia is that in the Aliens universe the ships use FTL drive that uses a (currently unknown to physics) field to change the entire vessel's mass into virtual tachyons, which force it to travel faster then light. going FTL causes reverse time dilation for the crew, making everything on the ship experience extremely long local time compared to Earth or orbital habitats. so hibernation is used to suspend the crew so they don't age rapidly. the rest of the ship is designed to be robust and using simple, time tested technologies so the reverse time dilation doesn't cause major failures.